Allow myself to…..defend…myself

I’ve followed Coinspeak since his/her first post here, thankful that Based Fly conscripted a crypto writer. Although I rarely agreed with the posts, I continued to read with an open mind to survey the BCH thesis (as I held a large amount of coins prior to the hard fork and did not have a clear plan on what to do with my BCH and now BSV). So, I was intrigued when I saw the about-face to BSV, an admittedly unpopular choice. I became a bit more incensed over the last two posts as I felt they read more like a white-paper/marketing shill than well-reasoned analysis. For instance, poaching the “Bitcoin (the program, not a specific chain) is the future”/Austrian hard money narrative from videos and then asserting later in the post that while the cited authors/presenters didn’t mention BSV by name, if they really thought about which chain is best and most likely to succeed, they would undoubtedly choose BSV. So now, I feel compelled to retort.

To anyone waiting for OP to defend this increasingly implausible thesis: prepare yourselves for a feat of tinfoil hat mental gymnastics, the likes of which have only been parodied with the image adorning the Bitcoin Economy part 2 post.

For a network and asset class that’s built to eliminate the need for trust, the BSV thesis at this point requires a hell of a lot of it. Namely, to trust BSV bagholders that the following is true, despite a consensus of evidence and opinion; (I remind you that consensus is a more relevant governing standard than “truth” in these matters)

1-CSW is still somehow Satoshi. For those that don’t know, CSW got BTFO in courts both of the legal variety and of public opinion. (for the record, I do think that Peter Mc., an opposing party in one of CSW’s ongoing suits, is insufferable and has become the “reality TV star” of crypto; lacking in skill, insight, and prizing his own promotion above all else.) The only talking point CSW defenders have left is that the Kleinman estate will have a large tax bill upon receipt of CSW’s purloined bitcoin. Even if his claims were true, CSW was bested and locked out by his own creation, unable to sign any transaction with consensus-recognized Satoshi holdings, which any competent user must know how to do—a far cry from his crafted brilliant inventor image espoused by his underlings and this blogger. Imagine the inventor of the first thought-powered car unable to prove it worked because he locked the keys inside.

One must pause here at the cartoonish nature of his defense; blatant blog back-date forgeries, recanted statements, demonstrably false transactions, and not a shred of proof that he was doing anything other than attempting to hack kitchen appliances whilst detailing a list of what classical music and romantic authors he happened to be Wikipedia-ing at the time (I invite readers to scan the above post and note the striking similarity in the “here’s a list of important sounding things I’ve seen other people talk about, but I can’t bother to synthesize them into prose/coherency”).

Only ideologues will deny CSW is an intelligent and capable programmer, but the open source world is full of anons with similar and greater skills. Not only is there a legal record of the repudiation of his claim to be Satoshi, but a paucity of peer validations other than anyone currently standing to benefit from his ordainment as Satoshi. Again, the peer-to-peer issue looms large here. Bitcoin and most similar cryptocurrencies are valuable because they can codify consensus amongst an adversarial community. CSW’s appeal to consensus has been rejected by the majority of Bitcoiners. The community has spoken and the value of his token, BSV will reflect its speech.

2-BSV will eventually succeed in developing a competitive product. Currently, the largest user of the BSV blockchain is a d-app that records the weather each day. I’m not kidding, most daily transactions on the BSV blockchain are just this automated weather log. BSV’s mining community is very incestuous with its small team of promoters, which keeps large agnostic miners uninterested, at a certain scale, mining pools would rather security and longevity over the possibility of manipulation (my assertion). Even commentators on this blog have been unable to properly install and use the few d-apps that are basically promising to be the knock-off versions of Twitch, Cashapp, Venmo, Twitter, YouTube, and whatever else might entice dupes to believe that BSV will one day be the gold standard of information technology.

There’s a reason that first-mover advantages are rarely overcome in the information space- the chicken and egg problem. Developers won’t waste time making a better version of YouTube for free and from the ground-up because Google’s got the resources to incentivize them to improve the existent YouTube, with its existing codebase. It’s almost impossible to unseat a large digital ecosystem, much less all of them at once like the BSV project aims to do. Betting on Flippenings has about the same track record, especially on Bitcoin chains. Factor in the existing resources and sentiment of most developers regarding the BSV community and you’ll see why all BSV hype must promise the same utopian future state; where CSW is recognized as the true Satoshi and all his dreams will become reality. I don’t know why someone would choose to save wealth in BSV over BTC with the existing features and the overhang of being piloted by such a goon.

Firstly, I’ll agree with the conclusion of this comment in that I have tunnel vision on BSV. Not just my last 2 posts, but probably more like my last 20. Fly doesn’t tell me what to write. In fact, I’ve only spoken to him twice and maybe a dozen emails tops. So, no editorial oversight. Constructive criticism noted though. I will endeavor to maintain a more balanced analysis. With that said, I am sharing my opinion and my opinion is that it’s BSV or bust.

Now, to get into a few other things I’d like respond to in this comment.

I may, time permitting, write a post about Kleiman v Wright. But basically Wright is being sued for 500k Bitcoins by his dead friend’s brother, Ira Kleiman. The entire case HINGES on CSW being Satoshi. CSW has definitely been his own worst enemy in the courtroom nearly getting charged with contempt by the judge but there is still a long way to go in the case. Here’s a recent writeup of the hearings this week savaging Craig Wright. Even if Craig Wright loses 500k Bitcoins by losing the court case….as I said on Twitter earlier:

There is a long road ahead.

However, CSW was never going to be able to get full value for all his BTC. Whatever he does get will be a lot.

The fact this turns from a long game to maximize profit to a short game to be first to dump isn't good for BTC.

He’s in elite company worldwide with the number and difficulty of the exams he’s passed. He’s not only a double PhD with multiple Masters degrees he’s a world class security expert. Do you think if he really wanted to fake documents he’d fail at it?

Further, to speak about CSW’s qualifications to be Satoshi, read his blog. No one understands Bitcoin and it’s origins like the creator. For example, one of the easier to understand posts is Zeno’s Paradox yet NO ONE figured that out before he shared it.

The above is why I provided a laundry list of technologies and things to research in my previous post. Each of those areas is it’s own specialty. They have all been baked into Bitcoin. I am not qualified nor interested in providing a detailed explanation on the intricacies but I can say after years of research I understand them well enough to begin to see how they apply in Bitcoin, and I’m blown away by it. Most “OG” Bitcoiners don’t see this at all.

The drama and intrigue in Bitcoin is beyond Tom Clancy level. The attacks on CSW have been relentless. Notice who does the attacking, bloggers like Peter McCormack. While BSV may have it’s own SJW I think if you honestly look at the players you’d see the teams are stacked for BSV. BSV is in the minority for sure but quality counts. Much like the “Raspberry Pi nodes matter” fallacy, a majority Twitter army means nothing when faced with entrepreneurs building new applications (and let’s not forget CSW’s has nearly 1,000 patents). Twitter consensus means very little in the real world.

Here’s another resource to read. Dr Wright says he knows the author but has not read it. I just ordered it and have not started reading but early reviews from friends say it’s good. The Art of Bitcoin: Satoshi’s Vision. Ignore the Amazon reviews, like most things BSV the BTC social media trolls are out to discredit BSV including Amazon reviews.

Turning to your second point regarding adoption, yes, currently WeatherSV is the majority of BSV transactions. Here’s a screenshot of Bitcoinblocks.live

Notice a few of those blocks are larger than the cap on BTC at 1MB. This should be of great interest to anyone in Bitcoin. Scaling matters. While a weather app is currently producing the most transactions it’s useful data that someone is PAYING for. What is happening on BTC?

……….

Right, nothing. No scaling, no development, no adoption, no future.

On adoption, beating a YouTube isn’t easy but Bitcoin is a Red Queen game. When everything is based on incentives rather than advertising we may see YouTube displaced or YouTube may adopt Bitcoin. Either way, these are early times as I’ve stressed many times. You must be able to imagine where this is headed and keep updating your hypothesis. Broad strokes, BSV has the POTENTIAL that BTC does not.

On that note, Twetch, the popular BSV Twitter clone, just got cloned….by the Chinese. THE FUCKING CHINESE CLONED A BSV SOCIAL MEDIA APP. Chinese people love Social Media and are hugely influential in Bitcoin markets. This should be it’s own post, but I doubt I’ll write about it. Potential: HUGE. And if it fails it’s still another baby step forward for BSV.

Is that happening on BTC? Nope.

Adoption matters and those who spend money to start new businesses are starting them on BSV because they see BSV has a shot at lasting.

I’d really like to see someone respond with what’s happening on BTC. Please. From what I’ve seen, the utility is null and the scaling is a joke.

Blockstream recently announced some details regarding their large-scale enterprise Bitcoin mining data centers located in Quebec, Canada, and Adel, Georgia, which have a combined capacity of 300 megawatts. Two of their clients include Fidelity, and Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn. If their mining facilities were running at full capacity with the latest ASIC hardware, their hashrate would account for almost 10% of the total Bitcoin network hashrate, which reached around 80 exahashes earlier this month.

Blockstream now has 3 times the hashpower of the entire Bitcoin Cash network, and according to angel investor and crypto OG WhalePanda, it controls enough hashrate to attack both BCH & BSV at the same time.

It’s misleading in my opinion. They announced datacenters and IF they were full and IF they were running the latest ASICs they’d have ~8 exahash. A couple years ago Halong Mining was supposedly aligned with Blockstream and was going to take over. Nothing since. I suspect this is more of the same.

And, if they could attack BCH or BSV they should do it. The fact they haven’t says a lot about the games being played by the miners.

Blockstream has done everything possible to neuter miners with sidechains. I find it unlikely they have taken their war chest and bought asics. It’s inconsistent with their message that miners don’t matter.

Coinspeak: I appreciate the respect you’ve paid to my comments by opening a new post.

I don’t think it worthwhile to debate the CSW case here. The ruling is online and I invite people to read it and form their own conclusion. Me, the judge in this case, the Australian Government, and his university are merely a fraction of the people that have called him a fraud. If you haven’t heard of him prior to your research into Bitcoin, you owe it to yourself to examine his previous ventures and legal entanglements. He is indisputably a gifted fellow, but bigger and more talented fish swim in the seas of anonymity. Regardless, he will never be able to move Satoshi’s coins.

To Recap: Your position (BSV>all, but especially BTC) is premised upon what BSV might become (the MetaNet/new infrastructure of connected information systems/etc) under the direction of CSW, its purported creator who knows best how to institute this new standard. You say: CSW and his ilk are building this out now and it will succeed at some point in 2020 or beyond. You describe the rough and preliminary state of the projects now, but believe that in time they will surpass incumbent programs.

To Claim: I would like to condense my rebuttal to the following assertion: Bitcoin is sovereign code. Nothing else. It is not an ecosystem of apps or d-apps. It is the acephale, leaderless and voluntary. There is nothing that is “happening” on the base layer of the BTC protocol other than an evolving ledger of transactions, which is what the Bitcoin software is designed to do and has done for about 10 years straight, without interruption. Its attack surface is microscopic. It promises no “potential” because it’s code, not a competitive company or marketed product designed to gain share. Coinspeak’s fixation on “potential” as driving valuation misunderstands the strength of the software. Potential is fundamentally a product of desire, not software.

To Regurgitate: Bitcoin is valuable because it is provably scarce (fixed supply) and it is controlled by no one, but is ruled by the collective community that use it, even raspberry pi nodes and wallets with 0.00000001 Bitcoin. It is valuable because it is dependable and immutable. It performs its tasks relentlessly. The only way changes get made to the code are when a consensus of nodes and miners (users) elect to support mutually agreed upon the changes. These points are made eloquently in the video posted by CoinSpeak a few weeks ago. Austrian monetary theory hardos blah blah blah.

To Assert: the existent state of BSV is not defensible, principally because it is not decentralized and has clear leadership. It is the project of one man (benevolent or not) and cannot escape his gravitational pull. The common theme of Coinspeak’s arguments and links is that they’re all written by CSW. Patents and appeals to ownership of code are antithetical to decentralization. The code is owned by no one, it enforces its own written rules. Satoshi is anonymous for this reason. No one can seek his/her/their insight. Bitcoin was an immaculate conception, born of a ghost who left nothing other than scarce writings and walked away, knowing that decentralization was only possible without leaders, without a head, without a ruler. Saifedean Ammous noted an interesting paradox about why this immaculate conception means that no true challenger to Bitcoin can arise; no other chain can replicate Bitcoin’s anonymous birth. By promoting the project, any marketer or miner will represent an unacceptable concentration of power and centralization. No other project will be able to overcome Bitcoin’s head start in decentralization, made possible by the Death of Satoshi. For he so loved the world… If CSW is able to prove he is Satoshi by moving his coins, I’d expect most users interested in real decentralization to shun whichever chain he elects to anoint. Only one chain has the track record and acceptance to ward off this concern.

To Examine: Block 593965 (mined on 8/3/19) on the BSV blockchain. Due to the elimination of a standard block size (1MB in BTC) BSV was able to produce a gargantuan 210MB block that caused all kinds of consternation amongst miners and split the blockchain into at least 2, but likely 3 separate chains. For those uninitiated to the intricacies of mining, blocks this size require exponentially more hardware power. In fact, Ryan Charles, the MoneyButton guy, conceded that this block crashed MoneyButton’s BSV node. He concluded that running a node on BSV will be prohibitively expensive, estimating that a node would cost “thousands of dollars per month to operate. As blocks continue to get larger and we have to upgrade the instance many times, this cost will balloon…it will be too expensive for us to run a node.” If this sounds familiar to Bitcoin neophytes, it’s because Facebook’s Libra nodes will also cost a ton of money to run, which restricts the ability of many users to inspect the blockchain and verify transactions. For BTC, full nodes have very low hardware requirements (you can run one comfortably on a raspberry pi) since the block size is capped at 1MB. As the costs to run nodes increases, fewer users will have the resources to keep up. The endpoint of this phenomenon is latent centralization. Only the rich can run full nodes and only nodes get to decide on which transactions, chains, and code are legitimate. The “raspberry pi nodes matter fallacy” is a core tenant of open source software like Bitcoin. Centralized cryptocurrencies are no better than speculative fiat currencies, you’re just trading a central bank printing press for a motley crew of internet weirdos.

To Conclude: There will be no flippening. BSV will exist in the world its creators build for it (fwiw I hope it is able to accomplish a lot of what you proclaim…hard forks force strange bedfellows!), but it will never have the trustless decentralized qualities of its rival that make it more suitable for usurping the hold of fiat currencies.

I find it odd that after a year of blogging on BSV that suddenly I have a very prolific counter point commenter.

You almost got it right. Bitcoin is more than sovereign code, it’s a protocol. BTC protocol has built in limits and “potential” solutions like Lightning Network that will scale for the world, but only 1MB blocks are safe. LOL

Consider this: there is no free lunch. BTC doesn’t scale because Lightning Network isn’t working because there is NO FREE LUNCH. Bitcoin was designed by a genius. A genius who stated years ago that it would be run in large datacenters. This fallacy about small blocks working is just that, a fallacy. BTC doesn’t scale.

BSV aggressively scales on chain. Breaking moneybutton and other services was done on purpose during a stress test. Now moneybutton can adjust their infrastructure or get left behind. Bitcoin isn’t socialist. It’s competitive.

The stress test caused orphans. Orphans are OK in Bitcoin. It’s a fallacy that they are not. No transactions were lost. Bitcoin self heals.

The fact you cited raspberry pi’s as contributing to the Bitcoin network shows you don’t understand Bitcoin. Raspberry Pis actually slow down the network. They perform NO Proof of Work in a Proof of Work system. They are read only, sucking down the blockchain for to verify transactions is a fallacy. Non mining nodes provide no function beyond hobbyist level concerns. Bitcoin is designed to be verified by a chain of digital signatures, not your smartphone.

The centralization argument is old and tiresome. BTC is worse than centralized. It’s controlled by developers who think they know what’s better than the what was written in the whitepaper.

BSV will first remove the changes made by the Core devs. Then they plan to lock the protocol. No more changes by devs. Miners will rule.

BTC has no such plans, having already mutated BTC into a segwit fork they are still doubling down that LN will save their bacon before the halvening.

With all that said, you’ve really said nothing new in these arugments that hasn’t been said 100 times. I responded because iBC readers may not have heard a back and forth of this nature. I doubt I respond in length in the future. I encourage you to start your own iBC blog here though. You seem to have the time and knowledge to put forth a perspective on BTC no matter how flawed I view it to be.

I appreciate the responses Coinspeak. I’ll choose to think of prolific is a kind word. To return the favor, I enjoy seeing your defense of BSV and BCH before it, and will continue to read into the future. How did you arrive at the BSV fork over the BCH? I’ll withhold future comments as I felt it necessary to provide a rebuttal of several of your assertions and feel that I have accomplished that for the time being.

I’m not sure I understand why it’s necessary to define Bitcoin as code + protocol, as it appears redundant since code dictates protocol. Change the code and protocol changes in turn; this is a one way street. I deliberately refrained from mentioning Lightning Network and other second layer solutions because that’s a separate debate, and I’m not here to defend them. Lightning isn’t mandatory or required to use the Bitcoin network. If scaling is your criticism then your point is taken, but doesn’t change the fact that the Bitcoin network succeeds in its function of maintaining an auditable ledger of transactions. Just not as fast or useable as you’d like, which is indeed a fair criticism, but is the unfortunate price we pay for the other qualities of the network, namely auditability and immutability for all users.

For someone that champions the idea that investors keep an open mind about the future of Bitcoin, you and CSW seem to have a very fixed vision of what mining and control will look like and who should be able to audit on-chain transactions and on what type of devices. In the picture you and CSW have painted, it looks like miners and nodes will be run only in instances where capital accumulates into an industrial/commercial scale (the “datacenter” model). This sounds awfully analogous to the modern gold economy where almost all gold is held in centralized secured repositories and few mercantile exchanges in London and elsewhere. Further complicating things, you state that BSV’s chosen developers will alter and then “lock” the code so that only the large “datacenter” scale miners can keep their machines on the levers of power. I’m not sure why anyone would voluntarily chose to participate in such an obviously aristocratic system because it looks a lot like central banks and fiat. I think our core (pun intended!) disagreement is over the role of decentralization and the role of users in a future Bitcoin network. Who do you want to control your Bitcoin code?

BTC has no plans because it has no future goal. To borrow a phrase, it doesn’t immanentize the eschaton. It has no grand schemes of its own, those are all products of desire. It’s working exactly as its coded.

Differentiating between code and protocol is important. TCPIP is the protocol for Internet communications. It remains unchanged for years. To build there must be a stable protocol. If TCPIP were being changed it could have adverse affects on the Internet.

This is even more critical when looking at a protocol to manage money and smart contracts. You should be able to know your smart contract is good with no expiration.

Satoshi said when Bitcoin was released it was set in stone. It’s a protocol, not code. Build on top of the protocol, don’t change it, much like we don’t change TCPIP today.

Satoshi also said early on Biticoin would run in large datacenters. Bitcoin is designed to be much bigger than just money. It’s the global repository for all information that has value. Large companies will compete to run Bitcoin. It’s designed to be competitive. Always has been. This means hobbyist nodes are worthless. They have no skin the game. However, due to the genius design, the regular user gets the benefit of large companies competing to validate their transactions and securing the network. The hobbyist node is a blockstream poison pill to keep BTC crippled.

>>BTC has no plans because it has no future goal.

Now that Blockstream has crippled BTC with segwit to create opportunity to sell their sidechains I agree!